Ethena Integrates With Bybit To Add USDe As Collateral Asset

Synthetic stablecoin startup Ethena Labs today unveiled an integration with Bybit to add its USDe token as a collateral asset on the crypto exchange.

Adding support for USDe will allow users to trade perpetuals while potentially capturing yield on Ethena–which currently sits at 15.3%–along with zero-fee trading on bitcoin and ether spot trades. Bybit users will also integrate the token to its Earn platform.

Ethena’s native token, ENA, edged up on the news . It’s up 1.5% to $0.97, at a $1.3 billion market capitalization. The team airdropped 5% of ENA’s total supply to early adopters, amassing a whopping $1 billion market cap on day 1, as the project also kicked off its “Sats Campaign.”

Today’s integration only adds gunpowder to the so-called stablecoin wars, which heated up last week as PayPal enabled PYUSD for cross-border payments, and Ripple touted its own U.S. dollar pegged-stablecoin.

According to the team at Ethena, they are mimicking the success of the two top stablecoins on the market, USDT and USDC, which collectively account for more than 90% of the $160 billion stablecoin market capitalization.

“The success of USDT and USDC has been deeply tied to its use as money on centralized exchange venues within key trading pairs,” read an X post from the Ethena social media team. “Adding USDe into these spot pairs is the first step in growing adoption beyond DeFi into the most liquid trading venues in the space.”

Placing USDe on Bybit is a definite win for the ecosystem, given the exchange’s size. It trails Binance by 24-hour volume with $3.6 billion, landing third according to monthly visits with 39.1 million, and takes the top spot by trust score on CoinGecko.

Ethena Climbing the Ranks

Ethena’s ecosystem has been on a tear since it controversially launched in mid February 2024. The startup unveiled a 27% yield on its stablecoin–it has since dropped to 15%–triggering PTSD woes from the Terra collapse.

USDe, Ethena’s synthetic stablecoin, backs the token that is pegged to $1, with staked ETH on Lido, while also hedging stETH with short ETH positions on centralized exchanges. Both stETH and short positions contribute to yield that’s passed on to stablecoin holders.

After its aforementioned airdrop, USDe quickly climbed the ranks, and holds fifth place for stablecoins according to CoinGecko. It added 20% to its $2.4 billion market cap in early April, although it has since declined , settling on $2.29 billion.

In early April, Ethena also added bitcoin as a collateral asset for USDe, a move intended to help the delta-hedged synthetic dollar scale by accessing the Bitcoin futures market.